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2011 Pac-10 Tournament Semifinal Recap - Arizona vs USC

(1) Arizona 67, (4) USC 62

There are two things one can very confidently pronounce in the aftermath of Arizona’s victory over USC in the semifinals of the Pac-10 Tournament: Lute Olson is very, very happy, and Kevin O’Neill is extremely disappointed. A game that certainly carried significance for its own sake was given an added dose of oom-pah-pah by an off-court incident that cast a shadow over this grudge match in the City of Angels.

Before the Pac-10 Tournament even began, this was an expected semifinal showdown, a game that USC needed to win if it was going to have a reasonable chance of being considered for an at-large berth to the NCAA Tournament. USC suffered stacks of bad losses – to Rider, TCU, Oregon (twice), and Nebraska – but coach Kevin O’Neill’s Trojans also took down Texas and Tennessee while gaining one win against Arizona, the Pac-10’s regular-season champion. If USC could have managed to beat Arizona a second time and make the Pac-10 final, an at-large bid was at least worthy of discussion. The Trojans still wouldn’t have been a likely NCAA team, but they would have injected themselves into the conversation. When USC crushed California in Thursday’s Pac-10 quarterfinals, this matchup was set in stone, generating more buzz than any other game at this four-day event.

Then, the stakes surrounding this clash acquired elevated dimensions for reasons that had little to do with basketball and everything to do with human ego.

Thursday night, O’Neill – who once served as an assistant to Arizona program patriarch Lute Olson during the Hall of Famer’s run in Tucson – ran into an old friend of Olson’s, longtime Arizona booster Paul Weitman. According to ESPN Los Angeles, Weitman is a man O’Neill had known for decades, something that would make sense in light of O’Neill’s work with Olson at a time when Arizona’s program was working its way up the ladder in college basketball. This kind of reunion would seem to have been an occasion for friendliness, but this is where another key detail in the story emerges.

When Olson encountered health problems in 2007, O’Neill was asked to be Arizona’s head coach. Having left Arizona once before, O’Neill took the head jobs at Marquette, Tennessee and Northwestern while also coaching in the NBA with the Toronto Raptors. The return to Tucson should have been a triumph, but O’Neill instead alienated Arizona’s star players – particularly Jerryd Bayless – and caused friction in the U of A locker room. Olson returned to take over the team the next year, only to run into deeper health issues that forced his abrupt retirement just before the 2008 season. O’Neill was not invited back, and the nomadic coach took the job at USC. An acrimonious relationship developed between Olson and O’Neill, and so it was that when Weitman – a close friend of Olson – met O’Neill this past Thursday in an L.A. hotel, the meeting was marked by bitterness, viciousness and hatred. The exact details of a heated exchange between O’Neill and Weitman aren’t known, but what is known is as follows: O’Neill’s wife was involved in the episode, and the incident was deemed serious enough by the USC administration to warrant a suspension for the rest of the Pac-10 Tournament. New USC Athletic Director Pat Haden simply can’t tolerate more headaches after all the messes he’s had to clean up in both the school’s basketball and football programs. The reality was plain: USC lost its coach before the team’s biggest game of the year, all because of a petty and ugly dispute with a booster at a rival program.

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Needless to say, Lute Olson and Kevin O’Neill both wanted this game badly… even if neither man was actually coaching on the bench. It can now be said that the silver-haired Olson is grinning – wherever he may be – while O’Neill has to bear the stain of hurting his players precisely when they needed him the most.

Arizona dug out this win for three primary reasons: First, O’Neill’s X-and-O acumen was missing from the USC bench. Second, Arizona limited USC guard Jio Fontan to just seven points on 3-of-7 shooting. The Wildcats’ defensive rotations and timely double-teams threw the Trojans out of rhythm and produced a steady stream of defensive stops at crunch time. Third, the U of A ran crisp halfcourt sets in the final three minutes of regulation. Flowing movement complemented with screens and cuts allowed Jamelle Horne to take – and make – a wide-open three for a 61-55 Arizona lead with just 2:28 left. Two more excellent set plays enabled Arizona star Derrick Williams to register a dunk and – later – two made foul shots to give the Wildcats a 65-60 cushion with 20 seconds to go. USC couldn’t make an effective replay, and the Wildcats won the Olson/O’Neill Bowl.

Next Game: Pac-10 Tournament Championship

(3) Washington vs. (1) Arizona - Saturday, 6:10 p.m. ET, CBS

By Matt Zemek
DFN Sports Staff Writer